That ill to him is ill to them; to Bors
650 Beyond the rest: he well had been content
Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have seen,
The Holy Cup of healing; and, indeed,
Being so clouded with his grief and love,
Small heart was his after the Holy Quest:
655 If God would send the vision, well: if not,
The Quest and he were in the hands of Heaven.
‘And then, with small adventure met, Sir Bors
Rode to the lonest tract of all the realm,
And found a people there among their crags,
660 Our race and blood, a remnant that were left
Paynim amid their circles, and the stones
They pitch up straight to heaven: and their wise men
Were strong in that old magic which can trace
The wandering of the stars, and scoff’d at him
665 And this high Quest as at a simple thing:
Told him he follow’d – almost Arthur’s words –
A mocking fire: “what other fire than he,
Whereby the blood beats, and the blossom blows,
And the sea rolls, and all the world is warm’d?”
670 And when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd,
Hearing he had a difference with their priests,
Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell
Of great piled stones; and lying bounden there
In darkness thro’ innumerable hours
675 He heard the hollow-ringing heaven sweep
Over him till by miracle – what else? –
Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell,
Such as no wind could move: and thro’ the gap
Glimmer’d the streaming scud: then came a night
680 Still as the day was loud; and thro’ the gap
The seven clear stars of Arthur’s Table Round –
For, brother, so one night, because they roll
Thro’ such a round in heaven, we named the stars,
Rejoicing in ourselves and in our King –
685 And these, like bright eyes of familiar friends,
In on him shone: “And then to me, to me,”
Said good Sir Bors, “beyond all hopes of mine,
Who scarce had pray’d or ask’d it for myself –
Across the seven clear stars – O grace to me –
690 In colour like the fingers of a hand
Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail
Glided and past, and close upon it peal’d
A sharp quick thunder.” Afterwards, a maid,
Who kept our holy faith among her kin
695 In secret, entering, loosed and let him go.’
To whom the monk: ‘And I remember now
That pelican on the casque: Sir Bors it was
Who spake so low and sadly at our board;
And mighty reverent at our grace was he:
700 A square-set man and honest; and his eyes,
An out-door sign of all the warmth within,
Smiled with his lips – a smile beneath a cloud,
But heaven had meant it for a sunny one:
Ay, ay, Sir Bors, who else? But when ye reach’d
705 The city, found ye all your knights return’d,
Or was there sooth in Arthur’s prophecy,
Tell me, and what said each, and what the King?’
Then answer’d Percivale: ‘And that can I,
Brother, and truly; since the living words
710 Of so great men as Lancelot and our King
Pass not from door to door and out again,
But sit within the house. O, when we reach’d
The city, our horses stumbling as they trode
On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns,
715 Crack’d basilisks, and splinter’d cockatrices,
And shatter’d talbots, which had left the stones
Raw, that they fell from, brought us to the hall.
‘And there sat Arthur on the daïs-throne,
And those that had gone out upon the Quest,
720 Wasted and worn, and but a tithe of them,
And those that had not, stood before the King,
Who, when he saw me, rose, and bad me hail,
Saying, “A welfare in thine eye reproves
Our fear of some disastrous chance for thee
725 On hill, or plain, at sea, or flooding ford.
So fierce a gale made havoc here of late
Among the strange devices of our kings;
Yea, shook this newer, stronger hall of ours,
And from the statue Merlin moulded for us
730 Half-wrench’d a golden wing; but now – the Quest,
This vision – hast thou seen the Holy Cup,
That Joseph brought of old to Glastonbury?”
‘So when I told him all thyself hast heard,
Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve
735 To pass away into the quiet life,
He answer’d not, but, sharply turning, ask’d
Of Gawain, “Gawain, was this Quest for thee?”
’“Nay, lord,” said Gawain, “not for such as I.
Therefore I communed with a saintly man,
740 Who made me sure the Quest was not for me;
For I was much awearied of the Quest:
But found a silk pavilion in a field,
And merry maidens in it; and then this gale
Tore my pavilion from the tenting-pin,
745 And blew my merry maidens all about
With all discomfort; yea, and but for this,
My twelvemonth and a day were pleasant to me.”
‘He ceased; and Arthur turn’d to whom at first
He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering, push’d
750 Athwart the throng to Lancelot, caught his hand,
Held it, and there, half-hidden by him, stood,
Until the King espied him, saying to him,
“Hail, Bors! if ever loyal man and true
Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail;” and Bors,
755 “Ask me not, for I may not speak of it:
I saw it;” and the tears were in his eyes.
‘Then there remain’d but Lancelot, for the rest
Spake but of sundry perils in the storm;
Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ,
760 Our Arthur kept his best until the last;
“Thou, too, my Lancelot,” ask’d the King, “my friend,
Our mightiest, hath this Quest avail’d for thee?”
‘ “Our mightiest!” answer’d Lancelot, with a groan;
“O King!” – and when he paused, methought I spied
765 A dying fire of madness in his eyes –
“O King, my friend, if friend of thine I be,
Happier are those that welter in their sin,
Swine in the mud, that cannot see for slime,
Slime of the ditch: but in me lived a sin
770 So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure,
Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung
Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower
And poisonous grew together, each as each,
Not to be pluck’d asunder; and when thy knights
775 Sware, I sware with them only in the hope
That could I touch or see the Holy Grail
They might be pluck’d asunder. Then I spake
To one most holy saint, who wept and said,
That save they could be pluck’d asunder, all
780 My quest were but in vain; to whom I vow’d
That I would work according as he will’d.
And forth I went, and while I yearn’d and strove
To tear the twain asunder in my heart,
My madness came upon me as of old,
785 And whipt me into waste fields far away;
There was I beaten down by little men,
Me
an knights, to whom the moving of my sword
And shadow of my spear had been enow
To scare them from me once; and then I came
790 All in my folly to the naked shore,
Wide flats, where nothing but coarse grasses grew:
But such a blast, my King, began to blow,
So loud a blast along the shore and sea,
Ye could not hear the waters for the blast,
795 Tho’ heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea
Drove like a cataract, and all the sand
Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens
Were shaken with the motion and the sound.
And blackening in the sea-foam sway’d a boat,
800 Half-swallow’d in it, anchor’d with a chain;
And in my madness to myself I said,
T will embark and I will lose myself,
And in the great sea wash away my sin.’
I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat.
805 Seven days I drove along the dreary deep,
And with me drove the moon and all the stars;
And the wind fell, and on the seventh night
I heard the shingle grinding in the surge,
And felt the boat shock earth, and looking up,
810 Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbonek,
A castle like a rock upon a rock,
With chasm-like portals open to the sea,
And steps that met the breaker! there was none
Stood near it but a lion on each side
815 That kept the entry, and the moon was full.
Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs.
There drew my sword. With sudden-flaring manes
Those two great beasts rose upright like a man,
Each gript a shoulder, and I stood between;
820 And, when I would have smitten them, heard a voice,
‘Doubt not, go forward; if thou doubt, the beasts
Will tear thee piecemeal.’ Then with violence
The sword was dash’d from out my hand, and fell.
And up into the sounding hall I past;
825 But nothing in the sounding hall I saw,
No bench nor table, painting on the wall
Or shield of knight; only the rounded moon
Thro’ the tall oriel on the rolling sea.
But always in the quiet house I heard,
830 Clear as a lark, high o’er me as a lark,
A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower
To the eastward: up I climb’d a thousand steps
With pain: as in a dream I seem’d to climb
For ever: at the last I reach’d a door,
835 A light was in the crannies, and I heard,
‘Glory and joy and honour to our Lord
And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail.’
Then in my madness I essay’d the door;
It gave; and thro’ a stormy glare, a heat
840 As from a seventimes-heated furnace, I,
Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was,
With such a fierceness that I swoon’d away –
O, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail,
All pall’d in crimson samite, and around
845 Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes.
And but for all my madness and my sin,
And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw
That which I saw; but what I saw was veil’d
And cover’d; and this Quest was not for me.”
850 ‘So speaking, and here ceasing, Lancelot left
The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain – nay,
Brother, I need not tell thee foolish words, –
A reckless and irreverent knight was he,
Now bolden’d by the silence of his King, –
855 Well, I will tell thee: “O King, my liege,” he said,
“Hath Gawain fail’d in any quest of thine?
When have I stinted stroke in foughten field?
But as for thine, my good friend Percivale,
Thy holy nun and thou have driven men mad,
860 Yea, made our mightiest madder than our least.
But by mine eyes and by mine ears I swear,
I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat,
And thrice as blind as any noonday owl,
To holy virgins in their ecstasies,
Henceforward.”
865 ‘ “Deafer,” said the blameless King,
“Gawain, and blinder unto holy things
Hope not to make thyself by idle vows,
Being too blind to have desire to see.
But if indeed there came a sign from heaven,
870 Blessèd are Bors, Lancelot and Percivale,
For these have seen according to their sight.
For every fiery prophet in old times,
And all the sacred madness of the bard,
When God made music thro’ them, could but speak
875 His music by the framework and the chord;
And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth.
‘ “Nay – but thou errest, Lancelot: never yet
Could all of true and noble in knight and man
Twine round one sin, whatever it might be,
880 With such a closeness, but apart there grew,
Save that he were the swine thou spakest of,
Some root of knighthood and pure nobleness;
Whereto see thou, that it may bear its flower.
‘ “And spake I not too truly, O my knights?
885 Was I too dark a prophet when I said
To those who went upon the Holy Quest,
That most of them would follow wandering fires,
Lost in the quagmire? – lost to me and gone,
And left me gazing at a barren board,
890 And a lean Order – scarce return’d a tithe –
And out of those to whom the vision came
My greatest hardly will believe he saw;
Another hath beheld it afar off,
And leaving human wrongs to right themselves,
895 Cares but to pass into the silent life.
And one hath had the vision face to face,
And now his chair desires him here in vain,
‘ “And some among you held, that if the King
900 Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow:
Not easily, seeing that the King must guard
That which he rules, and is but as the hind
To whom a space of land is given to plow.
Who may not wander from the allotted field
905 Before his work be done; but, being done,
Let visions of the night or of the day
Come, as they will; and many a time they come,
Until this earth he walks on seems not earth,
This light that strikes his eyeball is not light,
910 This air that smites his forehead is not air
But vision – yea, his very hand and foot –
In moments when he feels he cannot die,
And knows himself no vision to himself,
Nor the high God a vision, nor that One
915 Who rose again: ye have seen what ye have seen.”
‘So spake the King: I knew not all he meant.’
Pelleas and Ettarre
King Arthur made new knights to fill the gap
Left by the Holy Quest; and as he sat
In hall at old Caerleon, the high doors
5 Were softly sunder’d, and thro’ these a youth,
Pelleas, and the sweet smell of the fields
Past, and the sunshine came along with him.
‘Make me thy knight, because I know, Sir King,
All,that belongs to knighthood, and I love.’
Such was his cry: for having heard the King
10 Had let proclaim a tournament – the prize
A golden circlet and a knightly sword,
Full fain had Pelleas for his lady won
The golden circlet, for himself the sword:
And there were those who knew him near the King,
15 And promised for him: and Arthur made him knight.
And this new knight, Sir Pelleas of the isles –
But lately come to his inheritance,
And lord of many a barren isle was he –
Riding at noon, a day or twain before,
20 Across the forest call’d of Dean, to find
Caerleon and the King, had felt the sun
Beat like a strong knight on his helm, and reel’d
Almost to falling from his horse; but saw
Near him a mound of even-sloping side,
25 Whereon a hundred stately beeches grew,
And here and there great hollies under them;
But for a mile all round was open space,
And fern and heath: and slowly Pelleas drew
To that dim day, then binding his good horse
30 To a tree, cast himself down; and as he lay
At random looking over the brown earth
Thro’ that green-glooming twilight of the grove,
It seem’d to Pelleas that the fern without
Burnt as a living fire of emeralds,
35 So that his eyes were dazzled looking at it.
Then o’er it crost the dimness of a cloud
Floating, and once the shadow of a bird
Flying, and then a fawn; and his eyes closed.
And since he loved all maidens, but no maid
40 In special, half-awake he whisper’d, ‘Where?
O where? I love thee, tho’ I know thee not.
For fair thou art and pure as Guinevere,
And I will make thee with my spear and sword
As famous – O my Queen, my Guinevere,
45 For I will be thine Arthur when we meet.’
Suddenly waken’d with a sound of talk
And laughter at the limit of the wood,
And glancing thro’ the hoary boles, he saw,
Strange as to some old prophet might have seem’d
50 A vision hovering on a sea of fire,
Damsels in divers colours like the cloud
Of sunset and sunrise, and all of them
On horses, and the horses richly trapt
Breast-high in that bright line of bracken stood:
55 And all the damsels talk’d confusedly,
And one was pointing this way, and one that,
Because the way was lost.
And Pelleas rose,
And loosed his horse, and led him to the light.
There she that seem’d the chief among them said,
60 ‘In happy time behold our pilot-star!